The evil leaders of Planet Spaceball, having foolishly squandered their precious atmosphere, have devised a secret plan to take every breath of air away from their peace-loving neighbor, Planet Druidia.

Today is Princess Vespa's wedding day. Unbeknownst to the princess but knownst to us, danger lurks in the stars above...

Princess Vespa (Daphne Zuniga) — the bold, bossy and beautiful heir to the throne of planet Druidia — is fleeing her intended marriage to the painfully dull Prince Valium (Jim J. Bullock), the only eligible bachelor prince in her region of space. Unfortunately, Vespa and her robot servant Dot Matrix (performed by Lorene Yarnellnote of Shields and Yarnell; voiced by Joan Rivers) acquire the attention of the Spaceballs, a group of spacefaring evildoers — led by Dark Helmet (Rick Moranis) and President Skroob (Mel Brooks) — who plan to seize Vespa and hold her hostage in exchange for access to Druidia's oxygen (in order to drain it away and use it to replenish their homeworld's own thinning atmosphere).

Everybody got that...?

All hope lies with two mercenaries-for-hire: Lone Starr (Bill Pullman) and Barf the Mawg (John Candy), who hope to use the substantial reward offered by Vespa's father to pay off their debt to crime boss Pizza the Hutt (Dom De Luise). With a little help from wise-cracking mystic Master Yogurt (also Mel Brooks), Lone Starr fights to save Planet Druidia, defeat the Spaceballs, and (maybe) get the girl, too.

In reality, the plot's a big excuse which gives Mel Brooks a large enough canvas to poke fun at tons of sci-fi tropes.

Noted for being the final film released by MGM to have been shot at the studio's historic backlot at Culver City. More specifically, Stages 27 and 30 were utilized to film all of the interior scenes at Yogurt's temple and the interior scenes for both the bridge of Spaceball One and Spaceball City, respectively. Shortly after filming wrapped up, MGM sold the studio backlot to Lorimar-Telepictures.

An Animated Adaptation based on this film — Spaceballs: The Animated Series — was developed a couple of decades later; however, it languished in Development Hell for so long, only thirteen episodes were made. G4 eventually gained the rights, but due to said Development Hell, it ended up promoting the show before it was ready. The series didn't air until a year later, and by that point, production had been axed before the first episode ever aired.

Abandon Ship: Played for Laughs. Everybody is shown running for the Escape Pods in the film's climax — the orchestra, a variety of circus freaks, and even a bear — but leaving behind Colonel Sandurz, President Skroob, and Dark Helmet. Many of these are part of the capper of a Brick Joke initiated when Colonel Sandurz orders the cancellation of a three-ring circus and the closing of the zoo aboard Spaceball One as part of the preparations for Ludicrous Speed.

Adventurer Outfit: Dark Helmet has a brief costume switch into a safari outfit during the part of the movie that took place on the Tattooine-spoof planet. Complete with huge pith helmet with peep-holes.

Anachronism Stew: Played with. Like the franchise it mimics, Spaceballs appears to be set "in a galaxy far, far away", only with futuristic trappings. However, with the exception of Druidia, every locale in the film features contemporary details: a Winnebago trailer, Heavy Metal music, pizza, videotapes, The Merch (including a flamethrower!), Washington, D.C.-like government buildings, and references to such things as Disneyland and Wide World of Sports. Rule of Funny, of course.

And a minor one - after Dr. Schlotkins and the Hospital Hottie get caught making out in the dark, Helmet tells him to "get back to the golf course and work on your putts!" Putz is also Yiddish for penis/dick.

Biting-the-Hand Humor: The "merchandising" gag was this. George Lucas gave his blessings to loan out some of the more distinct special effects for this parody on the provision that there be no real licensed merchandise, and the gag was Brooks' way of tweaking his nose about it.

When on the desert planet, at one point there's a transition from Barf and Lone Starr to the sun beating down on the desert, with it shining through behind them in a dissolve effect. Halfway through, Barf comments, "Nice dissolve!"

During the duel between Lone Starr and Dark Helmet, one of the camera crew gets killed by a wayward strike.

Dark Helmet: Um, he did it!

Lone Starr: What?

A camera collides with Dark Helmet during a zoom-in shot. Just before, Colonel Sandurz blatantly sees the camera approaching and backs out of the way.

Dark Helmet and Colonel Sandurz watch the movie on video to find out where the heroes are at that moment.

Dark Helmet has a bit of a freak-out when they accidentally fast forward to the current moment in the movie, so that's he's watching himself watching himself watching himself (ad infinitum), and he (all of him) turn to look out of the screen. May be the record setter for recursive fourth wall breaks.

As the heroes attempt to elude a squad of guards firing lasers at them, Dot comments "Ooh, I HATE these movies!"

As President Skroob comes running into the bridge of Spaceball One:

Skroob:(panting) The ship is too big. If I walk, the movie'll be over.

Pretty much half of Yogurt's lines are breaking the fourth wall, with him hawking merchandise for the movie in the middle of the movie.

Yogurt: Merchandising, merchandising, where the real money from the movie is made!

Even his last line spoken in person gets it:

Lone Starr: Will we ever meet again? Yogurt: Who knows? God willing we'll all meet again in Spaceballs II: The Search For More Money.

After the Spaceballs force King Roland to give them the air shield code, Sandurz goes to turn off the wall communicator—and instead turns off the movie.

Butt-Monkey: For an evil warrior feared the universe over, Lord Dark Helmet seems to have very unfortunate things happen to him on a near-hourly basis. Just for funsies, here are some examples — he burns his mouth with coffee in his introductory scene, gets hit in the head with the door of Vespa's car, is sent flying into the front control panel of Spaceball-One when they decelerate from Ludicrous Speed, is found role-playing a liaison between himself and Vespa with dolls, and can't keep his helmet visor up to save his life. And that's before the climax of the movie.

Camera Abuse: The camera hits Dark Helmet in the face during a close-up. Later, a cameraman gets slashed during the climactic battle sequence between Lone Starr and Dark Helmet.

Child Marriage Veto: King Roland never has to back off from his demand that his daughter shall marry a prince. Sure the horribly boring Prince Valium was the only prince left in the galaxy, but it turns out that the hero is actually also a prince. Problem solved.

Composite Character: Lone Starr is a combination of Luke Skywalker (training in the resident magic source and rivalry with the lead villain) and Han Solo (criminal ties, Only in It for the Money, cynical, best friends with a furry alien and romantically involved with the princess), with the costume design of Indiana Jones. Yogurt is Yoda (name and appearance) and Obi-Wan (training style). Colonel Sandurz represents the various Imperial officers that appeared through the movies.

Conveniently Close Planet: Lone Star's Winnebago comes out of Hyperspeed and promptly runs out of gas. Cue nearby desert planet to land on.

Cool and Unusual Punishment: The Spaceballs threaten to undo Princess Vespa's nose-job and return her nose to its original grotesque size unless the King hands over the access codes to Druidia's planetary defenses. It works.

Cool Spaceship: Lone Starr's Eagle 5. Theres not many other things you can call a spaceworthy 1986 Winnebago Chieftain 33 with wings glued to the side.

Lone Starr:(exhausted and dehydrated) Must go on... must go on... must go on... who am I kidding? (collapses)

Digital Destruction: On original, non-anamorphic DVD, the scene where Dark Helmet threatens to restore Vespa's old nose became cropped so strongly, viewers can't see the crooked tip of her old nose. The Collector's Edition DVD fixed this, but might prove harder to find than the original release, which MGM has repackaged a number of times.

Lone Starr and Dark Helmet square off with their "Schwartz" lightsabers suggestively held at crotch height. Dark Helmet remarks "Hmm... I see your Schwartz is as big as mine. Now let's see how well you... handle it!" Made even better when they both glance down to check.

Also, after King Roland gives Dark Helmet and President Skroob the combination to his planet's air shield therefore preventing Princess Vespa from having to be given back her once ugly nose by the nose surgeon, Dark Helmet dismisses the nose surgeon by telling him: You can go back to the golf course now and work on your "putts".

When checking out a Sexy Nurse, Dark Helmet notes that she "must give great helmet".

Dramatic Timpani: Provided by an actual timpanist, who reappears during the evacuation sequence.

Ape 1: Dear me. What are those things coming out of her nose? (A second ape looks through binoculars, sees President Scroob, Dark Helmet, and Colonel Sandurz climbing down a Bedsheet Ladder out of Mega Maid's nose) Ape 2: Spaceballs?! Ape 1: Oh shit. There goes the planet.

Emergency Refuelling: The need to keep their ship fueled is Played for Laughs; "I told you we should've put more than five bucks in" - right before they make a crash landing on a desert planet. Fortunately, they eventually find some fuel.

The Empire: The Spaceballs, though apparently technically a republic, being led by a President and not a monarch.

Entitled Bastard: The princess starts out this way. She gets over it pretty quickly, however... She kinda lost the attitude along with the matched luggage.

Fake Static: Barf uses this ploy to make King Roland promise a million space bucks to rescue Princess Vespa. Note that he wasn't pretending to lose picture to get away from the conversation as is standard of this trope, but rather as a way of saying "I'm losing interest in this deal."

Fantasy Helmet Enforcement: Parodied and Double Subverted. After Dark Helmet refuses to fasten his seat belt after ordering Colonel Sanders to shift to Ludicrous Speed, their ship bypasses their target, and Dark Helmet can barely hang on. The villain tells Sanders to hit the emergency brake (which Sanders does, despite a warning sign on it that says "Never Use") and Dark Helmet is Blown Across the Room headfirst. Luckily, as Sanders points out, he was wearing the helmet, so he survives (but the helmet itself does not, and Dark Helmet collapses a few seconds later).

Flipping the Bird: Done by Barf to the guards at the prison to get their attention. (So he and Lone Star can beat them up.)

Flynning: The entire Laser Blade fight consists of a few pirate halves done so slowly that a higher intensity scene could have been had by hopping two children up on sugar and giving them foam swords. It was probably intentional, as the slow, clumsy fight choreography of Star Wars: A New Hope was legendary.

Mr. <Insert Product Here> machinery in the background of various scenes.

Glasses Pull: Of a kind. Dark Helmet pulls the mask down over his face whenever he wants to be scary and dramatic, and pops it up when he starts expressing exasperation or confusion. Or when he realizes he can't breathe in that thing.

Groin Attack: Dark Helmet's preferred use of his Schwartz powers is to Schwartz-choke the nads of subordinates who fail him. Or annoy him. ("You went over my helmet?") After the first time, they start covering themselves immediately when he gets angry.

Kicking Ass in All Her Finery: Vespa, while still in her dress, is handed a gun. She refuses to use it until her hair is singed. Then she goes "good enough for Rambo" by mowing down a line of Spaceballs.

Keep the Reward: Near the end, Vespa laments how greedy Lone Starr was to take the money and leave, only for her father to tell her that he only took 248 spacebucks for food, gas, and tolls. (Lone Starr had asked him not to tell her.)

Laughably Evil: Might as well be the Spaceballs' hat. They're out to rob a planet of all its air and kill off all life on it, but everyone aboard the ship, from the rank-and-file to the leadership, are comically-inept imbeciles.

Let Us Never Speak of This Again: After watching the painful footage of being catapulted into the bulkhead of Spaceball One, Dark Helmet says, "No, no. Go past this part. In fact never play this part again", and nervously drinks his coffee.

Lightning Bruiser: Spaceball One is (of the three we see to any degree) not only the most heavily armed, but also the fastest, if Ludicrous Speed counts for anything.

Love Makes You Dumb: At least during first meetings, "Now listen: on this ship, you are to refer to me as 'Idiot', not 'You captain!' I mean, you know what I mean." So much for Lone Starr always being right.

Lots of Luggage: After the Winnebago crash-lands on the desert planet, Lone Starr tells Princess Vespa to take only what she needs to survive. She determines that this includes her industrial-strength hair dryer, carried in a very large suitcase (which, naturally, she forces Lone and Barf to carry).

Ludicrous Speed: The Trope Namer, when Helmet says that they can't catch Lone Starr going at light speed. They need to go to ludicrous speed.

Oddly enough, it's actually an aversion despite being the Trope Namer: the only harm that really comes out of it is Spaceball One overshooting Lone Starr by a minimum of several hours in non-Ludicrous Speed travel time, and Dark Helmet taking some Amusing Injuries from crashing into a bridge console when Spaceball One decelerates.

Dark Helmet: I am your father's brother's nephew's cousin's FORMER ROOMMATE! Lone Starr: ... What's that make us?! Dark Helmet: Absolutely nothing. Which is what YOU are about to become.

Magic Countdown: Lone Starr is given one day to get the money he needs to pay off Pizza the Hutt. He then spends two days stuck on the moon of Vega with Vespa, plus an unspecified amount of time rescuing Vespa from Planet Spaceball and defeating Dark Helmet, which means he was long past the end of his deadline when he learns that Pizza had died, cancelling the debt. Nobody brings this up.

The Merch: invokedBeautifully parodied. Taken one step further by some of it clearly being Transformers merchandise with Spaceballs stickers on them. The Merch helps the baddies find Lone Starr and company, and it's everywhereif you look for it. The gag is actually Mel ribbing George Lucas, who only gave his blessing (and lent out Industrial Light and Magic) for this film if Brooks didn't make any real-life merchandise.

Mugged for Disguise: Lone Starr and Barf beat up two guards and steal their uniforms. Of course, Barf doesn't fit in his properly.

Mundane Made Awesome: A meta case, considering how much a lot of special effects are done in post-production digitally nowadays is that everything, even the sounds of static and the terrible quality of the communicator, in the Jammed Radar sequence was done by Michael Winslow right there and then. He effectively adlibbed what would normally take hours of post-production work.

The major evidence is when he drops an Precision F-Strike when the screen fails, since it smoothly transitions from the fake static he was doing to simulate the sound the screen SHOULD have been making.

Lone Starr:(sneaks up behind a guard and grabs his neck)Guard:(pause) What the hell are you doing? Lone Starr: ... the Vulcan neck pinch? Guard: No, no, stupid. You've got it much too high, it's more down here where the shoulder meets the neck! Lone Starr: Like this? Guard: Yeah! (collapses)Lone Starr: Thanks.

Put Off Their Food: At the end of the movie, when a diner patron who ate the Special begins moaning in pain, Barf - who'd also ordered the Special - quickly changes his order. After the alien bursts out and does its dance, both Lone Starr and Barf simply say "Check, Please!" and leave without eating.

Reading Ahead in the Script: The Spaceballs watch the VHS of the movie to find out where the heroes have escaped to. This causes great weirdness when they first get to the part of the video that's currently going on.

Reality Ensues: When Spaceball One comes out of Ludicrous Speed, Dark Helmet follows Newton's First Law and smashes into the control panel in front of him.

Reality-Writing Book: An example of a video rather than a book. The evil characters watch the video of the movie they are starring in — at one point their actions in the film universe and the video are perfectly synched up, which confuses the hell out of Dark Helmet.

Although it is mostly a parody of Star Wars, the plot closely resembles the classic romantic comedy It Happened One Night. Down to Lone Starr only accepting the 248 dollars—sorry, space bucks in travel expenses as pay, rather than the million space bucks.

Parodied relentlessly, with the Millennium Falcon equivalent being a literal Winnebago with wings — lampshaded when Spaceball guards call it exactly that — and the currency being "space bucks", among other examples. Especially funny near the end, with the actual Millennium Falcon and the Winnebago both stopping for gas, IN SPACE!

Road Trip Across the Street: Sci-fi version. President Skroob is beamed from his office to the command center, then beamed back to reverse a Teleporter Accident. Skroob then walks to the command center, which is the next room over.

Sequel Snark: Yogurt jokes that he and Lone Starr will meet again in Spaceballs 2: the Search for More Money, as part of the movie's Running Gag about merchandising. No sequel has been made, though an animated series had a short run in the mid 2000s.

And of course, the single longest gag in the film, the opening establishing shot of Spaceball One, is a Shout-Out to the shot of the Star Destroyer in Star Wars: Episode IV. The shape of Spaceball One and the music that plays during its reveal also shout out to Jaws; the ship is shaped like a shark, and the music is a slower horn-version of the Jaws theme.

Pizza the Hutt's mook Vinny Poker-Face seems to be a reference to Max Headroom, with his angular head and neck twitch.

Lone Starr tries the Vulcan neck pinch from Star Trek. The guard then tells him how to do it right, and then passes out due to the pinch now working.

When President Skroob tells the crew to prepare for metamorphosis and Dark Helmet replies, "Ready, Kafka?"note And this isn't the first time Mel Brooks made a joke about this play: in The Producers, Max rejects it for being "too good" (read: not bad enough to be a flop).

The evil plan of the Spaceballs is a reference to a rather tasteless ethnic joke: Why do Jews have big noses? Because air is free. Being Mel Brooks this is probably intentional.

Skroob telling Marlene and Charlene to "chew your gum!" is meant to be a reference to Wrigley's Doublemint Gum, which used twins in their advertisments. These twins were a reference to the clones (Betty and Betty) in Quark, who were played by the Barnstable twins from the Doublemint commercials.

Lone Star, Barf, Vespa and Dot arriving at Yogurt's temple and approaching his fiery statue before finally meeting him in person is similar to the main characters of The Wizard of Oz first meeting the title character in a rather frightened state of anxiety. Making this Shout-Out more clear is the fact that the scene was shot in the same sound stage as Oz. This is furthered by the similarities in the groups: a girl, a scruffy, ragged man, an animalistic man, and a metal companion.

It's not clear where exactly the parody comes from, but Spaceball One's transformation to Mega-Maid is either a reference to the SDF-1's transformation in Robotech or Transformers. It might be both. Barf specifically describes it as a Transformer.

Mel Brooks has said the only reason that the planet in Spaceballs is named Druidia is so he could throw in the line about a "Druish Princess". Plus plenty of more scenes. That's okay because Mel Brooks has N-Word Privileges. "Funny, She Doesn't Look Druish!"

Stealth Insult: Pizza the Hut gets Barf's name wrong and calls him "Puke". Barf corrects him, "That's Barf". However Barf says this in such a way, that it doesn't sound like he's actually correcting Pizza, but rather telling Pizza he looks like barf (which he does).

One Spaceball guard yells at Barf, "You son of a..." before getting shot. Barf is half dog.

The can of Perri-Air that Skroob uses turns out to have a second pun beyond the obvious Product Placement gag. The stylized "P" on the can also resembles a "D", and Skroob brings the can up to his nose. He's sniffing his Derri-Air. (If you don't get it, say it out loud.)

Stock Scream: It's a parody of Star Wars - of course it's going to have the famous Wilhelm Scream (it's when the one trooper gets shot in the rump after Barf reflects the shots back).

Colonel Sandurz definitely didn't see Lord Helmet playing with his dolls again.

Sword Pointing: Lone Starr and Dark Helmet duel with their lightsaber-like Schwartz sabers. At one point, they circle each other menacingly, sabers pointed at length, so the very tips crackle and spark when they come in contact with each other.

Teleporter Accident: President Skroob winds up with his head on backwards after being beamed into the next room. Beaming him back undoes it.

Theme Tune Rap: 'Cause what you got is what we need and all we do is dirty deeds, we're the SPACEBALLS!

Unmanly Secret: Dark Helmet plays with dolls that look like the main characters of the movie when he thinks he's alone... Of course, Col. Sandurz catches him in the act, but assures him that he "didn't see [him] playing with [his] dolls again."

And how Helmet has a normal voice with his mask up, and a deep one with it down. Still, it completely sounds like Rick Moranis trying to deepen his voice, which, given the doll-playing scene, is likely intentional.

Who's on First?: Two examples: First the argument between Dark Helmet and his crew of assholes... Who are all named Asshole. Then the exchange between Sandurz and Dark Helmet in the "instant videocassette" gag.

Your Spacecraft's Size May Vary: Mega-Maid, who at first starts off as big enough for a starship(albeit a star-Winnebago) to enter its "ear canal," then shrinks, but still big enough for a Spaceball to slide out its nostril.

Zeerust: That computer-letter font just doesn't look as futuristic now as it did in The '80s...

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